


Editing Ender's Game

by dirgewithoutmusic



Category: Ender's Game (2013), Ender's Game - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1235254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ender’s Game cinematic adaption had a fantastic cast, beautiful graphics and a sweeping film score, but I left the theatre greatly desiring some changes to the script. </p><p>I am fascinated by text-to-film adaptions, and the screenwriter’s choices here brought up some interesting possibilities for discussion of emotion, character conflict, and moral complexity.</p><p>If you’re interested in reading my ramblings, continue on. </p><p>Chapters:<br/>1: Fleshing Out the Toon Leaders (first up: Dink: the Jaded Mentor)<br/>2: Petra Arkanian, Lady of War Amid a Den of Hyper-Competitive Little Boys<br/>3: Giving Alai His Personality Back<br/>4: Smiley-face Bandaids, Beginnings, and Juxtaposition<br/>5: Where is Graff the Manipulative Bastard?<br/>6: Bean, Cantankerous Device for Exposition<br/>7: A Spotlight on Dragon Army<br/>8: An aside: saving the pilots<br/>9: The End</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fleshing Out the Toon Leaders (specifically Dink, the Jaded Mentor)

The two contenders for the status of Commander of the final battle were Bean and Ender. Canonically, Bean is smarter than Ender Wiggin. But he’s a poorer commander. Bean cannot rally the same kind of camaraderie below him. What makes Ender the better commander is his leadership and his compassion. The movie played well with his ruthless tactical skills—but mostly just dropped his ability to build, lead, and inspire teams. 

You can’t have an interesting plotline building a team if you don’t care about the team being built. And  _very_  little time was spent in this film trying to make Ender’s final five toon leaders (Petra, Alai, Dink, Bean, and Bernard) into interesting, layered individuals. 

So I guess that’s our job, my friends. 

—

I think they made a good choice on  _which_  of the toon leaders to maintain in the movie. In the book, Ender’s got nearly a dozen, many of whom don’t make the final cinematic cut: Crazy Tom, Han “Hot Soup” Tzu, etc. The movie pared it down to several of the most important: Petra, Dink, Bean, and Alai. Bernard got to come too. 

So, their choices of character were great! The fact that four of five weren’t white males was awesome! But their execution was a bit lacking. Right now, of the five, only Bernard the Bully gets any character development and that very shallowly (falling from bully power and learning to respect Ender). With Alai, Bean, Petra, and Dink, the screenwriter had complex sources from which to draw and he… well, he doesn’t. 

I suspect they were trying to shove all the “friendship” plotlines into Bean’s hands—but then they didn’t deliver on the brilliant, arrogant little delight that is Bean. Nonetheless, they give much of Alai’s dialogue and plot to Bean (while ignoring his own complex, jealous relationship with Ender); they turn Petra into Teen Romance in Space; and nix Dink’s character development entirely. 

Here’s a secret, though: Ender can have more than one meaningful relationship. He needs Alai, his first friend; Petra, the first to take a risk for him, his teacher, eventually his best right-hand woman; Dink, the jaded mentor, the cynic Ender inspires to follow him anyway; Bean, the smaller, smarter, disconnected kid, who gets swept up in Ender’s legend and becomes a leader himself.

(And I guess Bernard can come, too?)

They can  _all_  be complex and compelling. Time is limited— but all they each need is one key scene to introduce their inner conflict. Everyone’s got one. And once the audience sees it, you don’t need to keep reiterating it. It becomes the lens through which the viewer experiences the character.

That’s the great thing about human minds. You give us a couple hints—most of all if you show us a  _pattern_ — and we’ll eat it up. We spin it out, fill in the gaps. But you have to give us that sturdy post to start from and then we’ll post-hole the rest ourselves. 

If you give the viewer context to chew on, all the scenes with our boys and girl Doing War Things and Interacting become  _interesting._ For example:Dink going to Command School, following Ender to his final battle and playing the teachers’s games? If they’d told us a little about Dink, that would have been a big dramatic deal—instead, a boy in Battle School continued on his planned educational path. 

So tonight we’re going to talk about Dink, and how a single additional canonical scene would have doubled the depth of his character. 

 

DINK

All we need to add for Dink is a single brief scene from the book. It will make Ender’s choices to play or not to play, to lead or not to lead, more complex, but also make Dink’s decision to follow Ender to Command School more profound. 

Much of this is taken directly from Ender’s Game the book. I cut it up, removed some dialogue— took out a bit about missing home, combined Rose de Nose and Bonzo Madrid just as the movie does. 

 

> ENDER wakes up in Salamander Barracks. Everyone else is clearly asleep. He puts on Battle Room uniform, clearly intending to go sneak in some more practice in the Room.
> 
> Cut to: BATTLE ROOM. The Room is facing away from Earth and is black with stars. 
> 
> To ENDER’S surprise, DINK MEEKER is standing in the doorway, looking out. ENDER stops next to him. There is a silent pause, allowing us to enjoy the epic CGI at work. 
> 
> ENDER  
>  I saw you in the battle with Petra. I looked up your stats. You’re one of the best students here, Dink. Why are you just a toon leader?
> 
> DINK (grins)  
>  Actually, they promoted me twice, but I refused.
> 
> ENDER stares.
> 
> DINK  
>  The second time, they took my old locker and bunk and desk, assigned me to a commander’s cabin, and gave me an army. But I just stayed in the cabin until they gave in and put me back in somebody else’s army.
> 
> ENDER  
>  Why?
> 
> DINK  
>  Because I won’t let them do it to me. I can’t believe you haven’t seen through this crap yet, Ender. But I guess you’re young. These other armies, they’re not the enemy. It’s the teachers, they’re the enemy. They get us to fight each other, to hate each other. We kill ourselves, go crazy trying to beat each other, and all the time those bastards are watching us, studying us, discovering our weak points, deciding whether we’re good enough or not. Well, good enough for what? I was a little kid when they brought me here. What the hell did I know?
> 
> ENDER  
>  So why don’t you go home?
> 
> DINK  
>  Because I can’t give up the game. Because I love this.
> 
> ENDER  
>  So why not be a commander?
> 
> DINK  
>  Never. Look what it does to Bonzo. The boy’s crazy. They made him a commander and so he has to act like one. He can’t allow himself to have weaknesses. To be better than him, that’s an insult. To be stronger, that’s like cutting off balls. That’s why he hates you, because you didn’t suffer when he tried to punish you. He hates you for that, he honestly does. He’s crazy. They’re all crazy. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s winning, but that scares him worst of all, because he doesn’t know why he’s winning, except that I have something to do with it. Any minute somebody could find out he isn’t the magic general who can win no matter what. He doesn’t know why anybody wins or loses. Nobody does.
> 
> ENDER  
>  Doesn’t mean he’s crazy, Dink.
> 
> DINK  
>  I know, you’ve been here a year, you think these people are normal. Well, they’re not. We’re not. I look in the library, I call up books on my desk. Old ones, because they won’t let us have anything new, but I’ve got a pretty good idea of what children are, and we’re not children. Children can lose sometimes and nobody cares. Children aren’t in armies, they aren’t commanders. They don’t rule over forty other kids. It’s more than anybody can take and not go mad.
> 
> ENDER  
>  Maybe you can be a commander and not be crazy. Maybe knowing about craziness means you don’t have to fall for it.
> 
> DINK  
>  I’m not going to let the bastards run me, Ender. They’ve got you pegged, too, and they don’t plan to treat you kindly. Look what they’ve done to you so far.
> 
> ENDER  
>  They haven’t done anything except promote me.
> 
> DINK  
>  They think they’ve got you on ice. Don’t let them.
> 
> ENDER  
>  But that’s what I came here for. For them to make me into a tool. To save the world.
> 
> DINK  
>  I can’t believe you still believe that.
> 
> ENDER  
>  What?
> 
> DINK  
>  The bugger menace. Save the world. Listen, Ender, if the buggers were coming back, they’d be here. They aren’t invading again. We beat them and they’re gone.
> 
> ENDER  
>  But the vids… Battle School. All of this.
> 
> DINK (shakes his head)  
>  Your grandparents weren’t born yet when we fought that war. It’s all a fake. You watch. There is no war. They’re just screwing around with us.
> 
> ENDER  
>  Why?
> 
> DINK  
>  Because as long as people are afraid of the buggers, the world stays united. The people in power stay in power. But keep watching, Ender. People are going to catch on. There’ll be a civil war to end all wars. That’s the menace, Ender, not the buggers. And in that war, when it comes, you and I won’t be friends. Because you’re American, just like our dear teachers. And I am not.
> 
> DINK stands and offers a incongruous friendly hand. Ender takes it. 
> 
> DINK  
>  C’mon. Let’s go eat something.

Dink is the brilliant commander who chooses not to play. He’s one of Ender’s earliest mentors, jaded and cynical, thinking on a bigger picture than the scuffles in the Battle Room but in love with the game anyway. His choice to follow Ender to Command School is just that: a CHOICE, a sign of Ender’s leadership, a triumph (and, in its way, like much of this story, a tragedy).

This scene would also set the stage for the Earthly civil war—which we’ll talk about later. 

 

COMING UP NEXT: PETRA ARKANIAN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/73187442639/editing-enders-game-the-masterpost


	2. Petra Arkanian, Lady of War Amid a Den of Hyper-Competitive Little Boys

We’re playing a game tonight (and for many nights to come) where we talk about the structure of the Ender’s Game movie. Pull up a chair! Grab some hot cocoa! Listen in! Shout suggestions!

—

Right now we are discussing the five Toon Leaders of Awesome: Petra, Dink, Bean, Alai, and Bernard. (Ender’s last little army is also known collectively as “Ender’s Jeesh”). While the five are present in the movie, brilliantly diverse, and probably the best choices of the book’s line-up, none are made into complex, intriguing characters. 

So we’re fixing it, because we love them.

 

We LOVE them. No, I don’t think you’re understanding. The emotions I have about Petra Arkanian? The little Armenian girl? The best sharpshooter? Ender’s  _rock_  in the last battle? The young woman who was so competitive as a child that they checked her DNA to see if she was really a boy?

WHICH IF THAT DOESN’T TELL YOU SOMETHING ABOUT THE OVERT SEXISM OF HER WHOLE LIFE, THEN WE ARE NOT READING THE SAME STORY. 

Because  _girls_  can’t be  _competitive_. 

Petra Arkanian saves the world. 

 

PETRA  
In the book, Petra is a sharp, violently competitive girl in a world of men. She pairs her empathy for Ender’s underdog status with her delight in defying her commander and sticks her neck out to teach him the rules of the Battle Room. 

This girl isn’t present in this movie. They have removed her and replaced her with a love interest of an identical name.

How do we fix this?

First, I’d keep the scene where she teaches him to shoot, but include less handholding. It explains the Battle Room mechanics well enough, and establishes Petra as the champion marksman she is. 

Second, I would just take out all other the flirty scenes—the flirt-spar that Bonzo interrupts; saving her in the Battle Room; video-conferencing on the bed in Command School.

The flirty spar could be replaced with Ender (after being told by Bonzo that he cannot practice) going back to his Launchy group and asking Alai and the others to come practice with and learn from him. It’s an early scene that helps build Ender as a leader and as someone who values the success of the cause/group/others rather than just himself. Bonzo still interrupts and it still serves its purpose of establishing that Bonzo’s obsessive pride is enough to drive him to violence. 

That first battle sequence, where Petra gets a head concussion and Ender saves the day I would just cut short. We need that time for other things. Also, Ender needs a little more time as the put-upon underdog before we make him victorious king of the Battle Room. That scene is  needed to establish how old-school Battle Room games happen (before Ender’s creative strategies take it by storm when he gets Dragon Army)—but can be much briefer.

One thing in that battle to definitely keep, however, is the moment of Petra and Dink conferring behind a star. It’s the closest either of them gets in the movie to hinting at their lives as defiant, tactical geniuses with a distaste for Bonzo’s rigid authority. Here, Dink and Petra are working together as equals in the midst of a stiffly regimented (and, in the books, rather more sexist) world—that was a good moment. It set those two apart, the girl strategist and the boy who deigned to respect her like the solider she is. It sets them apart as cooperative misfits, which the audience loves to rally behind. Good. Keep that.

I’m going to steal Petra for one Bean interaction, but we’re nearly set on her. Her distinction, her conflict, is this one: a brilliant, combative girl amongst a horde of boys. Make her defiant in her scenes. Make her proud, arrogant and touchy.

Please, don’t let her hold Ender’s hand.

She gives us this: awesome badass ladies not restricted to your love plotline. 

(Speaking of badass ladies, have I mentioned I love the movie’s Major Anderson? BECAUSE I DO, SO MUCH).

For Ender, Petra provides a hand up when he needs one. Her inclusion in the final battle, like Dink’s, is a culmination and a sign of his growth and strength as his teachers become his toon leaders.

 

COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU: GIVING ALAI HIS PERSONALITY BACK


	3. Giving Alai His Personality Back

Alai is Ender’s first friend, a charismatic, sympathetic leader. He is a moment of peace in the narrative, a reminder that there are things worth fighting for other than Valentine. They grow apart as they both climb ranks, but that affection and that peace always connect them. 

In the movie, they give most of Alai’s plot and lines to Bean (and give Alai the fate of bullied minor character Shen). Bean is the one who bonds with Ender in the Battle Room their first day. Bean is the other smartest kid in their Launchy group, instead of being a pipsqueak newcomer who comes in later. They were trying to make us care about Bean by doing this—but then they gave Bean neither internal conflict or anything interesting to do that might have made this trade worthwhile.

Instead, let’s give Alai back to himself and make that separation and that “salaam” mean something. 

—

"But what’s Alai’s conflict?" you say. "You said each of these characters should have a conflict brought to life in order to be interesting. Alai’s just nice, and kind, and brilliant, and charismatic, and good. You said that was  _bad_ , Inky. He has to have  _conflict._ Why does Alai get away with it? Do you just have a crush on him?”

Ten-year-old me definitely had a crush on Alai.

But back to your question: Alai does have conflict. Even if it just seems like him being nice (and in a lot of ways it is just him being nice), that  _is_  his conflict. Alai is a man of peace in a world at war.

Alai maintains that inherent decency and compassion throughout the Bugger Wars and the brutal Earthside civil wars that follow. That is his conflict. He is interesting because he maintains that juxtaposition with grace and dignity. A child warlord, a man of peace; a friend amidst the most competitive children of the world. Another Valentine for Ender to set against all the Peters of the world. He is Ender’s heart the way Dink is his doubt, Petra his aim, and Bean his creativity. 

—

So how do we do this?

Return Alai’s dialogue— figuring out the Battle Room with Ender, teasing him on the plane, standing up to Bernard the Bully (“your mom cheated, that’s why you look like a—” A little crude, but well intentioned). 

This sets up Alai and Ender’s friendship, banding together to discover the rules of the Battle Room and to deal with bullies. This means, when Ender gets promoted and they get parted, Alai’s parting “salaam” means something. 

That’s a heartbreaking scene in the book, a moment of simple friendship and peace in the middle of a school of regimented violence. In the movie, Alai just saw Ender (who he doesn’t know very well) calmly claw a mouse through a giant’s eye in a computer game. It’s less “Peace be unto you my friend,” and more “Dude, your head seems like a funky place. Don’t kill anyone okay?”

—

AN ASIDE: TEAM BUILDING MONTAGES

Now, those bits of dialogue and interaction returned do enough to make Alai’s character much more investible. However, here’s a little bit more to help build their friendship, the team, and to present Ender as a leader in general. 

In the movie, Ender often wins alone. I’d shorten the scene where he wins the Battle Room in his very first battle. I’d take out the flirty spar with Petra, maybe shorten some of the time in the Launchy barracks. 

Instead of the flirty spar with Petra, I’d prefer them to stick with the canonical subplot. Instead of Ender, banned from practicing with Salamander, turning to Petra; instead have it be Ender, banned from practicing with Salamander, turning to his Launchy group. 

Ender asking them to work with him would be an interesting moment for him standing up to Bernard’s bullying ways again, as well. The rest of the school’s dislike for the upstart Launchies also sets up Ender as underdog—which the movie kept forgetting to do. ENDER WILL SAVE US ALL. Yes, we know, but let him  _earn_ it. 

We can keep the scene where Bonzo interrupts, as it nicely sets him up as a violent bully, which, you know, will be important later. All we have to do is steal a few moments from the book and cobble them together with the “time passes in Battle School” montages of the movie. For instance, some adaptation of these book scenes: 

> ENDER and his LAUNCHIES are practicing combat.
> 
> OLDER STUDENTS come in to their practice room, taking down names on a clipboard.
> 
> ENDER  
>  What are you doing?
> 
> OLDER BOY (grins)  
>  Taking a look at some Launchy  _losers._ Don’t want you ending up in our armies. 
> 
> ALAI  
>  Hey! Make sure you spell my name right!

> ENDER  
>  Maybe we shouldn’t do this. Kids are getting pushed around. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.
> 
> ALAI  
>  They scare you too? They been pushing you around?
> 
> ENDER  
>  No
> 
> ALAI  
>  You still my friend?
> 
> ENDER  
>  Yes.
> 
> ALAI  
>  Then I’m still your friend, Ender. I’ll stay here and practice with you.
> 
> Bonzo and his buddies burst in, shout taunts, punch ‘em.
> 
> The Launchies fight back a bit, cause damage. They don’t quite win, but they manage to get away, or hold them off til a teacher interrupts.  
> 
> The Launchies beam with pride at holding their own. 
> 
> ENDER (proud father figure set apart from the rest)  
>  Practice is over for today.

—

BERNARD

Fine as is. The bully who gets knocked off his high horse and rehabilitated. He has his moments already:

1\. Establish him as bully.

2\. Establish his fall from confidence (“Why am I here? You don’t even like me,” he says to Ender from the back of newly-formed Dragon Army).

3\. Letting Ender give him his self-worth back (I forget exactly— something along the lines of “You really think you’d be here if you didn’t deserve it?” Bernard’s chest puffs up. He goes on to join Ender and his jeesh in saving the entire damn world).

—

BEAN

Okay, I lied about talking about Bean. He gets his whole own section later, because with his character it’s not just about resuscitating his personality— Bean is also the key to solving one of the big emotional plot holes of the movie. 

tl; dr.

For the jeesh, this is what I want:

Petra, fierce, defensive, and competent, gives a reason for helping Ender that isn’t “I’d like to hold your hand.” 

Dink gets to explain his choices—which makes him multidimensional, but also makes Ender’s choices (to command, to play or not to play) more meaningful.

Bernard is fine as is. Bean I’ll talk about later.

And Alai gets to be a person, not a punchline. The “salaam” gets to matter. 

COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU: SMILEY-FACE BANDAIDS, BEGINNINGS, AND JUXTAPOSITION


	4. Smiley-Face Bandaids, Beginnings, and Juxtaposition

There are many things at the heart of Ender Wiggin. The movie did good capturing his brilliance and, to a degree, his love for Valentine and his sympathy for the Buggers. 

But there are a few other things that allow Ender to win both the war and our interest: among them, his empathetic abilities to build teams and inspire other, and his ruthless willingness to destroy things which threaten him. 

The leadership could have been earned by  _letting him lead_ —by making his jeesh a vibrant, individualistic group won over by Ender, not just seemingly assigned him. We discuss how we might do that using the characters of [Petra](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67646109672/editing-enders-game-part-1b-petra), [DInk](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67641516818/editing-enders-game-part-one), and[Alai](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67735818277/editing-enders-game-part-1c-alai) in my earlier posts (tagged “screenplay jigsaws”). 

So, now, let’s discuss how to establish Ender’s ruthlessness. Let’s begin at the beginning.

 

It is fitting that the first scene of the movie is the Graff/Anderson conversation. It’s legacy. It’s like starting the Hobbit with “In a hole in the ground there lived a…”

But what should happen next? What occurs in the movie is a rather lengthy sequence of Ender at a military school— time that really could have been better spent making the side characters people and Ender a more solid leader.

Here’s my suggestion.

> TITLE CREDITS: ENDER’S GAME
> 
> Begin with a close up of band-aid covered with smiley faces on the back of Ender’s neck.
> 
> The room is filled with WHISPERS.   
>  Third… Washed out of the program… They took out his monitor… What do you do with a washed up Third? They gonna try to stick him back in his mum?
> 
> The camera pulls back slowly, revealing the rest of ENDER, of the brightly-decorated classroom, the other kids in civilian clothes, the teacher writing something simple on the board.
> 
> The bell rings. Class breaks. We follow ENDER to the hall, where we find STILSON THE BULLY.
> 
> ONE OF STILSON’S LACKEYS  
>  Washed out, eh, Thirdie?
> 
> They shove him up against a wall with a poster that reads “Two children per family. International Std. 882563-97. [A Third is Absurd](http://mylifeinleaps.tumblr.com/post/67143795635).”
> 
> STILSON   
>  You washed out of the program. No more monitor. Know what that means? They’re not watching you anymore.
> 
> ENDER is dragged into a room, where the bully fight goes down about how it did in the movie.

This time, however, our first introduction to Ender isn’t him winning a computer game against his classmates. It’s him as a quiet victim of public ridicule. He doesn’t want any trouble; he just wants to go home. He doesn’t have a need to  _beat_  them, not until they become a threat—and once they become an unavoidable threat, he destroys them.

This time, Ender is not a military student, trained to violence. This time, when he goes for a sharp bit of desk art as a weapon, this time when he kicks Stilson when he’s down, this time when his response to bullies is quickly thought-out war and fear tactics—it’s not because maybe he was trained this way. It’s not because he’s used to violence.

The beginning ought to introduce Ender in the entirety of his archetypes, his sacred triumvirate of victim, tactician, and killer. It’s a story that gets repeated over and over again in the text. The fight with Bonzo in the showers. The final battle. Great things often come in threes, in storytelling.

The movie seemed to have dropped two of those identities in order the embrace the “tactitian.” They start with him winning a game. In Battle School, he finds victory in his first Battle Room game and little bullying manages to stick. The writers skirt uncomfortably around the blood on his hands, talk about other things. They don’t like to make him vulnerable.

Well, that’s too bad. Take a note from Iron Man 3. We like vulnerable superheroes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved Iron Man 3, ok, so sue me


	5. Where is Graff the Manipulative Bastard?

Gather ‘round, gather close; it’s time for me to have too many emotions and opinions about the film adaption of a little story about a sweet little boy who crushes his opponents into the dust. 

So far, we have discussed Ender’s need for a vivid supporting cast— specifically, how to flesh out Petra, Dink, and Alai. We also talked how the opening scenes could have been better used to set up the particular peculiarity of Ender’s mix of brutal violence and loving pacifism.

So now we come to my point #3: People don’t lie to Ender enough. 

And by people I mostly mean Graff. 

It makes sense why they chose to do this, but I’m arguing that removing so much of Graff’s manipulation of Ender harms the story more than it helps. 

Why did they do it? They had to inform the audience what was going on—tell them what was important, explain the stakes. In the book, a lot of explanation falls into private conversations with Graff sassily monologuing, or is parceled out into implied subtext. The screenwriter made a different choice— to go the age-old route of informing the protagonist of things in order to inform the audience. 

But so much of this story relies on Ender being manipulated. He is under emotional and psychological attack from an unfriendly world constructed by Graff and the teachers. Graff wants him to believe no one will ever come to his rescue. Graff wants him to believe the war is far off, that he is still a child playing games, so that Ender will take the ruthless path. Ender’s empathy makes him the commander they need (in order to both lead his jeesh and to anticipate the enemy); but that empathy also makes it so that Ender, unless actively threatened, would never commit the massacre that Graff is asking of him. See Graff’s dilemma? So Ender must be lied to. Graff must create the threat that will force Ender to his best extremes of violence— not a threat from the buggers, but from the teachers. 

Leaving out this degree of manipulation harms the story most in the final battle against the bugger home world. As the final battle, in many ways, is the emotional climax of the story, this is a big deal. So let’s talk a bit about that scene. 

In the movie, it is a moment of triumph (we won!), then tempered and complicated with the reveal that Ender has just unknowingly committed xenocide. In the book, the final battle is Ender’s lowest moment. 

Rather different kinds of emotional height, don’t you think?

The story’s climax must matter for the story to matter. In the book, it matters because Ender is breaking, and we see it. His despair, exhaustion, and defiance are desperately engaging. It doesn’t matter that we think the battle is just a simulated game. We care about Ender.

The movie went a different route. The stakes are made to be Ender’s victory or defeat; his goal is to beat the game and become commander. 

And this doesn’t work. It makes the next scene (easily one of the best in the film; Ender’s horror at discovering he’s committed xenocide is beautifully acted by Asa) ring not unintuitive (as I said, phenomenal acting) but confusing. If Ender was thrilled about “winning” the status of commander, why does the idea of killing buggers horrify him to this degree? Assumedly, that was what he was about to start doing. 

The final battle at the bugger’s home world must be a game to Ender. And more than that, for Ender to rise to the level of ruthless violence required here, there must be a true threat. But that threat can’t be the buggers, because they’re not attacking. So Graff does something different.

Graff builds for Ender a world in which no one will ever come to his rescue. They drive him harder and harder. And in the final battle, as with Stilson the bully, as with the bullying on the shuttle (in the book), as with the fight in the bathroom with Bonzo— Ender decides he’s done waiting. This is the last straw, the final blow. This is when he strikes, and makes sure they will never hurt him again. 

But it’s not the buggers he wants to destroy. He doesn’t care about the little dots on the screen. He cares about the people controlling them, the people who put him here.

The enemy, as Dink said, are the teachers. 

In Ender’s eyes, Mazer, cruel and capricious and incomprehensible, has put Ender against a game he cannot win. Ender is tired of being pushed, prodded, and shoved up against impossible odds. 

So he ends it.

It’s his name, after all.

Ender’s place of mind, standing there, isn’t “I have to win,” or “I have to show them I can be a good commander.” He doesn’t want to win.

Ender thinks to himself, “I want this to be over. I’ll do something so dangerous, so risky, so bloodthirsty, that they will never let me command a single squadron. They will send me home. They will let me go.”

This is not a triumph.

This was a screw-you to Mazer, to Graff, to the Strategos. That is what we rise to cheer for. Not the death of the buggers, not the battle, not the earning of a commander’s position. Ender stood up to his puppeteers and said, “I’m done.” And he went out with a bang.

Then the truth comes out. Xenocide. The horror sinks in.

The movie kept trying to make Ender victorious. Never the underdog, never the tragic hero. They begin the movie with him winning a computer game. They finish his final battle as if it was a victory and not a last-ditch screw you at his abusers. 

Ender’s story is not a victory. He wins a war he wasn’t sure he wanted to fight with a xenocide he didn’t want to commit. He is a child who loves too hard, too much, and it’s that love that makes him such an effective killer. Ender is a tragedy.

But they wanted a scifi action flick, not a heartbreaking psychological coming-of-age. And they got one. 

—

For this story to work, Ender must be lied to. So much of the movie’s lost emotional complexity stems back to the need to Tell The Audience Things By Telling Ender Things. They have a sensible reason for doing this, but it injures the emotional impact of the story— so maybe we should find a better way of communicating with the audience. 

We could use the Graff side scenes as an exposition drop— I loved the Graff/Anderson dynamic they had going in the movie. But I have a different proposal: 

Bean.

COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU: BEAN, SECONDARY PROTAGONIST, SMARTER THAN YOU, AND CANTANKEROUS TOOL FOR EXPOSITION


	6. Bean: Cantankerous Device for Exposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's rather long and a bit overambitious re: timing. And if you disagree with my love for Julian Delphiki aka Bean... skip on to the next chapter. You'll be happier, I'll be happier, and hopefully you'll like my non-Bean-centric thoughts much better than these.

Hello dear friends and strangers! We are playing the What Would We Have Wanted In An Ender’s Game Movie game. Please, chime in, throw friendly pieces of un-rotten fruit, murmur melodically about character development into my inbox. 

We’ve established that A) Ender must be a leader, B) that one [needs](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67735818277/editing-enders-game-part-1c-alai) [solid](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67646109672/editing-enders-game-part-1b-petra)[characters](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67641516818/editing-enders-game-part-one) around oneself to do this, and C) that people really ought to lie to Ender[ a whole lot more](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67935697006/editing-enders-game-part-3-where-is-graff-the) than they do. 

This post will begin to discuss Bean, who will hopefully both become an engaging and solid character  _and_  help us with our contradictory needs of Lying to Ender and Telling the Audience the Truth. 

I understand the desire to tell Ender’s Game and not Ender’s Shadow. Ender’s Shadow, a companion novel telling Ender’s Game from Bean’s POV, is long and much too packed to really be included in the movie—we can’t have Nikolai, Poke, Sister Carlotta, Achilles…

But I do think there are a couple key scenes that would both make Bean a compelling secondary protagonist and solve our Lie to Ender problem. 

 

See, Bean’s a really clever kid. An ex-urchin with a strong sense of self-preservation, he spends a lot of time sticking his nose into restricted areas in order to sniff out the lay of the land. Bean’s got a tactical mind superior even to Ender’s, but his lack of Ender’s empathy and leadership makes him an inferior commander. 

Ender is the only one who can win the war—but Bean’s the one who finds out they’re fighting it. 

And if Bean figures out they’re fighting it— that means they can tell the audience without getting Ender so dangerously close to the truth. 

HOW TO BEGIN? AT THE SECOND BEGINNING. 

With Ender’s polite confrontation with Graff over alienating him in the shuttle and our first steps into Battle School, we have in some ways a secondary introduction or opening scene. Let’s take advantage of it and use it to introduce our secondary protagonist.

 

> GRAFF’s quarters. GRAFF and ANDERSEN are videoconferencing with a SUPERIOR OFFICER.
> 
> ANDERSEN  
>  Did you have to do that? They’ll hate him. How is he supposed to lead them now?
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Ender will handle it.
> 
> SUPERIOR OFFICER ON CONFERENCE CALL  
>  And if he can’t? Who next?
> 
> ANDERSEN  
>  I’ll make up a list.
> 
> OFFICER  
>  You’re hobbling your best horse, Colonel Graff. 
> 
> GRAFF  
>  I told you. His isolation can’t be broken. He can never come to believe anybody will ever help him out, ever. If he once thinks there’s an easy way out, he’s wrecked.
> 
> ANDERSEN (sarcastically)  
>  You’re right. That would be terrible, if he believed he had a friend.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  He can have friends. It’s parents he can’t have.
> 
> OFFICER  
>  What about the other boy? The one they say is smarter than Wiggin?
> 
> GRAFF looks like he’s taken a bite of something nasty.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Bean. Higher on the intellectual tests, maybe, but he’s no leader. We need more than one brilliant mind to win this. Ender will bring them together.
> 
> Cut to BEAN, who is looking miniscule among a hallway full of older students.
> 
> GRAFF (cont. in voice-over)  
>  Bean’s just a stray who tests well; some nun picked him up on the streets of Amsterdam.
> 
> ANDERSEN (voice-over)  
>  As much as I hate to agree—I’ve read Bean’s psychological file. The child’s untrusting, damaged, and antisocial. Always has to have an escape route. I’d bet on him in a chess match, but not to command a war.
> 
> Various older boys call out with various tones of concern, contempt, or crudeness, “What are you doing here?” “Gods, it’s  _tiny_.” “He could walk between my legs without touching my—“
> 
> PETRA ARKANIAN approaches, shoving one aside.
> 
> PETRA  
>  Hey, leave the kid alone. You get lost trying to find the toilet, Launchy? Launchy barracks are down this way.
> 
> PETRA tries to lead him away, but BEAN doesn’t move.
> 
> PETRA  
>  I’m Petra Arkanian.
> 
> BEAN keeps looking at her.
> 
> PETRA  
>  Come on, you may be little and you may be scared, but they don’t let you in here if you’re deaf or stupid.
> 
> BEAN shrugs. He follows her down the corridor.
> 
> BEAN  
>  I’m Bean.
> 
> PETRA  
>  That’s not a name, that’s a lousy meal. You don’t fool me. This mute thing, it’s just a cover. You came up here on purpose.
> 
> BEAN grins.
> 
> PETRA  
>  They send a bunch of tactical geniuses up here and expect us to stay put. There’s enough screening tests to make sure all the kids here are top of their game, but those teachers— You know the way from here?

Then we go to the Dap introductory scene in the Launchy barracks and the story continues on as normal. Except now, we know we’re supposed to pay attention to Bean, and probably Petra. Ender as the isolated, manipulated genius is also apparent—but his status as the Chosen One is less absolute.

With any of the rest of the jeesh, we could almost leave it here. We’ve established that Bean is brilliant, guarded, and withdrawn. Watching him warm up to Ender and eventually follow him to Command School would have been an arc as clear and full as Dink growing to trust Ender over his cynicism, or Alai’s continuing affection and loyalty.

But while the rest of the jeesh simply needed moments to establish character, Bean’s going to get a whole subplot. No, I don’t love him best. Maybe I love him best. Maybe I love them all best. But Bean’s investigative nature and outsider status are going to let him frame Ender’s story.

—

Next, let’s continue our set-up of Bean’s tendency to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong—we need this context for later. We’ll also use this next scene to sneak in a little camaraderie with Ender.

In Ender’s Shadow, Bean makes a friend named Nikolai (or, rather, Nikolai friends at Bean until it sticks). Until Bean softens up a little, Nikolai is his Watson in many ways—sounding board and emotional connection to the world. We’re importing as little as possible from Shadow in order to avoid clutter and to keep Ender’s Game center-stage. The only parts of Bean’s novella I’m bringing in are the ones which support, clarify, and deepen Ender’s story

So Ender is going to step in for Nikolai, giving us a little insight into Bean and also showcasing Ender’s empathy and desire for friendship.

Now, this shift takes away some of the superior/subordinate relationship Ender and Bean have in the books, but I think it’s  decent trade for a simplification. We have enough characters. Just gotta give ‘em moments to be people

This scene also establishes that Bean is not just wandering the halls, he’s hacking the computer system, due to a deeply-ingrained need to know all the nooks, crannies, and escape routes around him. (In the books he climbs into air ducts and eavesdrops, too, but we’ve got time constraints here, people).

 

> ENDER (sees Bean is alone; a welling-up of sympathy)  
>  What’re you doing?
> 
> BEAN (looks up from his tablet, at Ender, then back down)  
>  Not playing the mind game. I don’t understand why you do, Wiggin. They even  _call_  it the mind game. 
> 
> ENDER sits down on the bunk. BEAN’s tablet is half full of a text on military history; the other half is running code.
> 
> ENDER  
>  It has its moments. Maybe I’m learning something about them. 
> 
> BEAN (conflicted, then quirks a smile)  
>  They think I’m reading. 
> 
> ENDER  
>  But you’re hacking the system.
> 
> BEAN  
>  I like knowing what’s going on. 
> 
> SOMETHING interrupts them and we move to a new scene. 

These two introductory scenes are going to lead up to Bean’s investigation and slow reveal of the manipulations surrounding Ender. It also leads up to his “Defrosting the Ice Queen” personal subplot, if you pardon the tvtropes reference, as Bean grows closer, more loyal, and more empathetic with Ender. 

Bean’s subplot should serve as a wider and more engaging window into the internal workings of Graff’s schemes. It’s a more entertaining method than just having Graff and Andersen repeatedly discuss things they already know. By revealing secrets, studying and almost narrating Ender’s adventures, Bean serves to heighten the stakes for the viewer while leaving Ender’s manipulated innocence in place, as it so sorely needs to be.

 

Bean, in my ideal version of this film, is Ender’s narrator. Bean is used to tell the parts of the story that Ender cannot know, and he is used to emphasize, frame, and point out scenes of importance. (Ender, meanwhile, is  _living_  those scenes and is therefore busy).

Bean allows the audience to know things Ender does not and cannot know—that the Bugger invasion is a lie; that it is in fact  _humanity_  who is invading  _them_ ; that Bonzo is dead.

Ender needs to be lied to. He is the epitome of empathy, despite the death on his hands. He loves his enemies as he destroys them, and he only fights when there is no other way. The final battle must be constructed of lies, but if Ender thinks it’s a game, how can we get the audience to understand the stakes?

One, [we make Ender’s victory a defiance](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67935697006/editing-enders-game-part-3-where-is-graff-the) of not the “simulated” enemy, but of the teachers, which brings the importance of the battle into the real world.

Two, we let the audience learn the truth through Bean’s eyes.

 

And, please argue if I’m wrong, but I rather think Bean discovering these things via boldness and trickery is much more dynamic to watch than Graff and Anderson discussing things they already know.

[This is what we’ve written for Bean so far](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/68149367420/editing-enders-game-part-5-bean): a brief introduction and moment with Bean and Ender in the Launchy barracks. Bean’s hacking the teacher’s student data system and pretending to read a theoretical military text. Ender, as he does, is trying to make a friend. This established Ender as observant and emotional, approaching a boy who was sitting alone and shooting glances at the laughing social center of the room (grouped around Alai who is a [CHARISMATIC BADASS](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67735818277/editing-enders-game-part-1c-alai)). Also it established Bean as an arrogant braggart of a know-it-all who maybe wants friends, even if he pretends not to. 

—

Next, Dap calls Bean in to chastise him for his hacking. Bean claims to have been reading, and when questioned scrambles to come up with why a space commander cadet is reading about the theories of medieval land fortifications. Why do we include this scene?

1) It establishes Bean as the tactician he is, thinking quick on his feet to cover his ass.

2) Especially when, as in this story, the Authority is one of villains, it is delightful fun to see a spunky young hero standing up to them. 

3) While he scrambles to explain why fortification theory matters in space, Bean realizes defending the Earth, as the Fleet claims to be doing, is impractical, nearing impossible.  _To put a sphere of scouts out around the Earth far enough that detection would be useful at all is completely unfeasible—see! A practical application for land fortification theory! Oh wait I think I just eureka’d when all I meant to do was a little bullshitting…_  The only smart option, Bean realizes (aloud, handily), would have been to send a fleet to the Bugger’s home system right after the defeat, so that news of the defeat would arrive at the same time as the return attack. Offense is the best defense in this case. 

Here we are, in the first third of the movie, setting up the idea that the teachers are LIARS. (And also setting the stage for the reality of Ender’s last battle). But instead of a dialogue between two people who know and have no reason to discuss it, we have the more dynamic scene of Bean figuring it out and Dap lying through his teeth. Mm, lies and accusations. Delicious. 

—

Adding Bean in as a participant and commenter on [the Epic and Exhausting MidBook Battle School Sequence](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/72753477331/editing-enders-game-part-6-a-spotlight-on-dragon) would add some depth and background. Bear with me while I drag some  _Ender’s Shadow_  in here. 

(Which he is, right? Ender’s  _shadow_? Bean’s close enough to see everything, to weight everything, to tell us Ender’s story—that’s why this works). 

Amid all the exciting winning that happens in Ender’s Dragon Army time at Battle School, we’re also going to have some moments of Bean. See, Battle School is  _exhausting_  (Command School will be worse, but, well). It’s kind of hard, though, to make playing in zero grav with shiny fake guns not… fun. We can do our little montages and show kids falling asleep in the mess hall, snapping in barracks, sweating and grunting and bruising in battle. But why don’t we just cheat a little, too? Let’s let Bean do his job— narrate the story.  

 

> Bean standing outside a door labeled COLONEL GRAFF. He is watching his feet and looking wounded.
> 
> GRAFF (audible through the door)  
>  But Ender is clearly the superior leader.
> 
> DAP  
>  Bean’s been acing every tactical exam we give him. The higher-ups have been noticing.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  But he can’t lead. He doesn’t care, doesn’t connect. Like he’s got gears and cogs instead of a soul.
> 
> DAP (laughs softly)  
>  Yeah, I know what you mean
> 
> Bean closes his eyes.

(This is a different kind of ambush. It mirrors Ender’s bathroom fight with Bonzo, which is to come. Ender must prove himself alone, with violence. Bean here is challenged to make more of himself than he is, to be the leader he knows he is not (he’s wrong). The challenge here frames his later rallying of the dining hall as a victory – until it smashes to shocked defeat, of course).

(The  _true_  victory this leads to comes later, with a conversation between Graff and Bean in Command School, where Bean chooses Responsibility and Graff gives him Respect). 

 

> BEAN knocks on the door.
> 
> BEAN  
>  Sir
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Come in, Bean
> 
> GRAFF, ANDERSON, and DAP are inside. 
> 
> BEAN  
>  I can wait.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Captain Dap and Major Anderson can hear what you have to say
> 
> BEAN  
>  If you say so sir. It’s not a secret. I would like to have access to station supplies.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Denied.
> 
> BEAN  
>  That’s not acceptable, sir.
> 
> ANDERSON  
>  Why do you think so?
> 
> BEAN  
>  Short notice, games every day, soldiers exhausted and yet still pressured to perform in class—fine, Ender’s dealing with it and so are we. But the only possible reason you could be going this is to test our resourcefulness. So I want some resources.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  I don’t remember your being commander of Dragon Army. I’ll listen to a requisition for specific equipment from your commander.
> 
> BEAN  
>  Not possible. He doesn’t have time to waste on foolish bureaucratic procedures
> 
> GRAFF (amused)  
>  And you do?
> 
> BEAN  
>  I’m the one he assigned to think of stupid things you might do to rig the game against us and think of ways to deal with them.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Permission denied.
> 
> BEAN  
>  That’s not acceptable, sir
> 
> GRAFF  
>  I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Bean, but it matters less than a cockroach’s fart whether you accept my decision or not.
> 
> BEAN  
>  I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, sir, but you clearly have no idea what you’re doing. You’re improvising. Screwing with the system. The damage you’re doing is going to take years to undo, and you don’t care. That means that it doesn’t matter what condition this school is in in a year from now. That means that everybody who matters is going to be graduated soon. Training is being accelerated because the Buggers are getting too close for delays. So you’re pushing. And you’re especially pushing Ender Wiggin.
> 
> GRAFF looks grim.
> 
> BEAN (cont.)  
>  When the day comes that Ender Wiggin is looking for ways to stop the Buggers from getting to Earth and scouring the whole planet, are you going to give him some bullshit answer about what resources he can and cannot use?
> 
> GRAFF  
>  As far as you’re concerned, the ship’s supplies don’t exist.
> 
> BEAN  
>  As far as I’m concerned, Ender is about this close to telling you to fry up your game and eat it. He’s sick of it—and if you can’t see that, you’re not much of a teacher. He doesn’t care about the standings. He doesn’t care about beating other kids. All he cares about is preparing to fight the Buggers. So how hard do you think it will be for me to persuade him that your program here is crocked, and it’s time to quit playing?
> 
> GRAFF  
>  All right, Dap, prepare the brig. Bean is going to be confined until the shuttle is ready to take him back to Earth. The boy is out of Battle School.
> 
> ANDERSON  
>  Colonel!
> 
> BEAN  
>  Go for it, Colonel Graff. I’m done here anyway. I’ve got everything I wanted here—a first rate education. I’ll never have to live on the streets again. I’m home free. Let me out of your game, right now. I’m ready.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  You won’t be free on Earth either. Can’t have you telling these wild stories about Battle School.
> 
> BEAN  
>  Right. Take the best student you ever had here and put him in jail because he asked for access to the supply closet and you didn’t like it. Come on, Colonel Graff. Swallow hard and back down. You need my cooperation more than I need yours.

A shot of GRAFF’s irritated face—and then we cut to BEAN dropping a bag of supplies near the Battle Room entrance.

 

> BEAN pulls out a long, thin cord like a fishing line and ties it to the edge of the Battle Room. A few other Dragon Army kids cluster around him.
> 
> BEAN (wrapping the cord around his waist)  
>  Let’s see what we can do with this.
> 
> Bean launches himself into the Battle Room.

This scene is one of the first examples of Bean supporting a team (FOR ENDER). It’s more defying authority and it’s more setting up Graff and the teachers as the antagonist. Bean’s complaints are also a way to emphasize the stress of the school situation explicitly but without being too clumsily overhanded. 

—

Now, what’s the next place Bean needs to narrate?

(You’re going to notice— what I’m doing is tossing Bean in every emotionally climactic part of Ender’s story, to point out and frame it as important. It might just be a brief shot of him, but Bean is the viewer’s avatar, the eyes we watch Ender through. Ender is nearly  _godly_  in his compassion; Bean is much more human, it’s easier skin to live in. And because Ender is kept so often in the dark, for us to have the full emotional impact and context of the story we need a different set of eyes). 

We dazzle through the rest of Ender’s victorious, exhausting run at Battle School, ramping up to the moment when everything topples for Ender— Bonzo Madrid attacking him in the bathroom, and Ender’s second kill. 

Let’s start here with Ender’s last battle at Battle School— an unfair set up: Ender’s Dragon Army against two others. He wins, using Bean’s bluffed-for cord, using a creative ploy to twist the rules— you saw it in the movie, well enough. I’d add a little to the ending, though: 

 

> DRAGON wins. The lights flicker on. And GRAFF glides out to congratulate them. 
> 
> ENDER   
>  I beat you again sir.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Nonsense, Ender. Your battle was with Griffin and Tiger.
> 
> ENDER  
>  How stupid do you think I am?
> 
> GRAFF  
>  After that little maneuver, the rules are being revised to require that all the enemy’s soldiers be frozen or disabled before the gate can be reversed.
> 
> BEAN  
>  Rules? Heh. It could only work once anyway.
> 
> GRAFF turns away.
> 
> ENDER  
>  Hey! What is it next time? My army in a cage without guns, with the rest of Battle School against them? How about a little equality?
> 
> GRIFFIN COMMANDER  
>  Ender, if you’re on one side of the battle, it won’t be equal no matter what the conditions are.
> 
> The soldiers start chanting, clearly meaning to be affirming.  
>  Ender Wiggin! EnDER! En _DER_!
> 
> ENDER looks crushed
> 
> As they leave the battle room, 
> 
> FLY MOLO or other soldier  
>  Practice tonight?
> 
> ENDER shakes his head
> 
> BEAN  
>  Tomorrow morning then?
> 
> ENDER  
>  No.
> 
> FLY  
>  Well, when?
> 
> ENDER  
>  Never again, as far as I’m concerned.
> 
> FLY  
>  Hey, that’s not fair. It’s not our fault the teachers are screwing with us. You can’t just stop teaching us—
> 
> ENDER (slams his fist into the wall)  
>  I don’t care about the game anymore! Don’t you understand? The game is over.

You know, just to add a little to Ender’s state of desperate, wounded exhaustion, before we throw him into a curb stomp battle in a bathroom.

The army heads to lunch, and Ender heads to his bunk alone. His army protests— people have been pushing them down in hallways, bullies have been trying to get Ender alone over the months of Battle School montages— but they’re too high on victory to really worry. 

In the mess hall, Bean decides to do something about the bullies and jumps up onto a table to give a speech. Having Bean narrate (see, narrate!) the story here frames Ender’s battle and also is the next step in Bean’s growing undying loyalty to the young Wiggin. 

So we have Bean standing on a table in the mess hall, shouting the students into a fervor.

 

> BEAN  
>  There’s some of you here who need a reminder of a couple points of Fleet law. If a soldier is ordered to do something illegal or improper by his commanding officer, he has a responsibility to refuse the order and report it. A soldier who obeys an illegal or improper order is fully responsible for the consequences. Just in case any of you here are too dim to know what that means, the law says that if some commander orders you to commit a crime, that’s no excuse. You are forbidden to obey.
> 
> SOLDIER  
>  You got something in mind, here, pinprick? 
> 
> BEAN  
>  I’ve got you in mind, Lighter. Your scores are pretty much in the bottom ten percent in the school, so I thought you might need some extra help. 
> 
> SOLDIER  
>  You can shut your facehole right now, that’s the help I need! You don’t even know what’s going on, pinprick. 

This is overlain with Ender in the shower.

We’re looking at Ender face-on as water pours over him. Bonzo and his posse of bruisers steps into the room.

Ender closes his eyes. 

 

> ENDER  
>  Six friends to beat up one little boy in a bathroom? Your father must be so proud.

Bonzo jerks his head and he and Ender square off alone. The fight begins. 

 

> BEAN  
>  I know Bonehead Madrid’s trying to turn you into a street crew, you pathetic losers. He can’t beat Ender in a battle room, so he’s going to get a dozen tough guys to beat up one little kid. You all hear that? You know what Ender is— the best damn commander ever to come through here. He might be the only one able to do what Mazer Rackham did and beat the Buggers when they come back, you think of that? And these guys are so smart they want to beat his brains out. 
> 
> Oh, you forgot about the Buggers? Is that it? You forgot that this Battle School wasn’t put here so that you could write home to Mommy about your high standings on the scoreboard. So you go ahead and help Bonzo out, and while you’re at it, why not just slit your own throats, too? Cause that’s what you’re doing if you hurt Ender Wiggin. But for the rest of us—well, how many here think that Ender Wiggin is the one commander we would all want to follow into battle. Come on, how many of you? 

Bean’s finished his speech— the mess hall is shouting support, our soundtrack for the bathroom fight. 

Ender is losing. 

 

> SOLDIER in the mess hall  
>  Listen to this, pinprick. The soldiers who are planning to take Wiggin apart aren’t even here. So much for your stupid speech.
> 
> Bean freezes. All music cuts out as Bean tears through the halls.

We flash back to Bonzo and Ender. Bonzo has Ender from behind, in a chokehold. Ender is scrambling for a handhold.

Bean stumbles to Ender’s empty room, sees the empty towel hook, and keeps running.

Ender slams his head back into Bonzo’s face, crushing his nose up into his skull.

Bonzo drops.

The camera refocuses on Bean, standing in the bathroom doorway, staring. Ender takes a heaving breath and then teachers and medical personnel rush into the room. Ender is dragged out of the room, only a towel for decency, Bonzo’s blood dripping off the back of his skull.

 

> In the corridor, Graff grabs Bean.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Let’s get you out of here, kid.
> 
> BEAN (in shock)  
>  Bonzo’s dead, isn’t he.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Don’t be silly.
> 
> BEAN  
>  I know what death looks like, Colonel Graff.
> 
> GRAFF (dragging him down the corridor)  
>  Don’t be silly.
> 
> ANDERSON  
>  And where did you get all that nonsense about not obeying a commander who gives illegal orders?
> 
> BEAN (finally focusing on them)  
>  From the Uniform Code of Military Conduct.
> 
> ANDERSON  
>  The Uniform Code doesn’t apply to students, at least not that part of it.
> 
> BEAN  
>  But it applies to teachers. It applies to you. Just in case you obeyed any illegal or improper orders today. By what… I don’t know… standing by while a fight broke out in the bathroom? Just because your commanding officer told you to let a big kid beat up on a little kid. As a learning experience.

Bean as narrator in the Bonzo scene heightens the stress of it. It sets up a rescue, which tell us Ender needs one. It has Bean literally explaining the severity of the situation as it unfolds. It means we have a backing soundtrack of the shouting mess hall to overlay the fight with—and to cut out abruptly when we want the audience’s skin to go cold.  

Bean also lets us know that Bonzo is dead. ENDER CAN’T KNOW. Boy cares too much, which in many ways is the point of Ender Wiggin.

Next, Ender goes to Earth, as in the movie. Val asks Ender to go back and lead. Ender dives into the beautiful lake, a surrender. We all weep for this broken boy asked to break himself even more.

Bean and the others go to Command School where they are taught about how the “games” work there (aka telling the viewer how this is supposed to work).

 

> _During training_
> 
> DINK (deeply suspicious of the teachers because [CHARACTER TRAITS](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67641516818/editing-enders-game-part-one))  
>  How they going to choose the leader? Put us in a ring and make us fight like roosters?
> 
> BEAN  
>  We’re waiting for Ender of course.

Ender and Graff board a shuttle, arrive, etc.

At Command School, Graff comes to talk to Bean.

 

> GRAFF  
>  They want me to find out how you’ve been getting your inside information, Bean.
> 
> BEAN  
>  I don’t have any inside information.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  You knew that Ender was going to be the commander. They want me to ask you how you hacked our system. How you knew Ender was coming. I told them talking to you would give you more information than it would give us.
> 
> BEAN  
>  I guessed. Not that it was hard. Look at who we are. Ender’s closest friends. Ender’s toon leaders. He’s the common thread. There were plenty of other kids you could have brought here, probably about as good as us. But these are the ones who’d follow Ender straight into space without a suit, if he told us he needed us to do it.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Nice speech, but you have a history of sneaking.
> 
> BEAN  
>  Right. When would I have time for that? I just do what I’m told all day every day. You guys keep assuming that we kids are stupid, even though you chose us because we’re really really smart. And now you sit there and accuse me of having to steal information that any idiot could guess.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Not any idiot.
> 
> BEAN  
>  An expression.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  I don’t care that you knew about Ender coming. I need to know what else you’ve figured out.
> 
> BEAN  
>  Colonel, doesn’t it occur to you that the very fact you’re asking me this question tells me there’s something else for me to figure out, and therefore greatly increases the chance that I will figure it out. [grins] Just tell me what secret you want to make sure I don’t know, and I’ll tell you if I already knew it.
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Very helpful.
> 
> BEAN  
>  Colonel Graff, am I doing a good job?
> 
> GRAFF  
>  Absurd question. Of course you are.
> 
> BEAN  
>  If I do know anything you don’t want us to know, if I have guessed anything about this station, about the Buggers, about… anything. It’s not affecting my performance. I haven’t mentioned anything to the other kids. So just… let me do my job, sir.

This reconciliation and respect with Graff is important to Bean’s emotional journey. Where Ender has struggled to be good, Bean has been fighting for  _worth_. It also lets us properly frame the last battle as the twisted beast it is, reminding the viewer of the truth Ender doesn’t know. 

Bean needs only a single shot in the last battle as they send their men to their deaths, all unknowing ignorant children, except for Bean, who in his single shot looks far far too old for his body. Just one shot of him, as they send men to die, and to make a xenocide with their last breaths.

Ender gets to carry that scene, with exhaustion, with battered triumph, with the shock and horror and outrage of the discovery after the fact. A glimpse at a somber Bean, however, is a reminder of the context. While an exhausted Ender moves to end this last, unfair game and we cheer his screw-you at the teachers, while Graff holds his breath, we also weep for the things we know that Ender doesn’t. 

—

tl; dr

Bean is the secondary protagonist and narrator. His brain’s so big because it’s spoilers— which is very important to us, as there are things Ender  _cannot_  know. 

COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU: AN ASIDE ABOUT PILOTS


	7. A Spotlight on Dragon Army

Ender cannot come into the story framed as a winner.

Honestly, he doesn’t even  _leave_  the story as a winner. Ender is, in all things, an _ender._ He finishes the game, stops the battle, destroys his enemy, but all his victories are flawed with grief.

Earlier, I [wrote up one possibility for how to begin](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67737567977/editing-enders-game-part-2) the story while still maintaining Ender’s vulnerability and his unique ruthlessness. There are of course many possibilities out there (I’d love to hear yours. Someone want to try to incorporate Peter properly into this movie? I haven’t even tried to touch that because WOW what work).

But now let’s talk about the middle of the story, where Ender is allowed to win for once without disastrous consequences.

(Don’t worry, the disaster comes soon enough). 

The movie’s emphasis is on Ender the victorious tactician. In his first battle, he single-handedly turns the tide (after cradling an injured Petra. WHYY. STOP THAT). But I want [Ender the leader](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67641516818/editing-enders-game-part-one), who makes the people around him better, so instead of focusing our time on Ender’s months as a Launchy and then as a soldier, let’s emphasize his time as a commander of unlucky and unbeaten Dragon Army.

How to do this? Lots of ways, but here’s one:

After a brief introduction to Battle School and some Friend Establishing Moments, Ender gets promoted out of the Launchy barracks. There is a tearful, actually resonant moment with Alai, [who gets his personality back.](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67735818277/editing-enders-game-part-1c-alai)

We meet Salamander Army and Bonzo the Jerk Face, who isn’t happy about Ender. [Petra, glorious Lady of War](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67646109672/editing-enders-game-part-1b-petra), defiant and similarly spit-upon, teaches Ender to shoot and doesn’t hold his hand once.

Next, we view our first traditional battle. We can keep a shorter version of that initial battle scene with Bonzo’s army— cut the victorious Ender and cut Petra’s dramatically painful concussion. We can use this scene as a way to explain a “normal” battle, one with ordered lines, with formations, so that Ender’s creativity can shine through later.

Still excluded by Bonzo, Ender starts organizing practices with Alai and his old Launchy barracks. T[hey are bullied and nonetheless trudge enthusiastically on.](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67735818277/editing-enders-game-part-1c-alai)

[Dink Meeker gives Ender some jaded advice at the edge of a Battle Room](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67641516818/editing-enders-game-part-one). This both gives Dink character (SHOCKING. HOW DARE WE) and paints a much more flawed and cynical view of the Battle School. Which is useful. Because wow is this place flawed and deserving of cynicism.

(Of course, ENDER doesn’t deserve Dink’s jaded apathy, no matter how much the world does—which is why cynical old Dink Meeker follows the kid to Hell (aka Command School and genocide) and back).

Next, Ender is pulled out of teaching some little kid how to fire a gun in the Battle Room. Dap takes him to Graff, who offers him a promotion.

> ENDER  
> An army? Why me, sir? I’m not even permitted to fire my gun in a battle yet.
> 
> ANDERSON  
> But you watch them.
> 
> ENDER  
> You watch me watching them.
> 
> GRAFF  
> And you’ve got more command experience than half the toon leaders in this place, with your little after school club.
> 
> ANDERSON  
> You aren’t just playing the game. You lead out here, too, in the hallways, on the practice mats. We’d like to see what you’ll do with an army.
> 
> GRAFF  
> Besides, it’s only Dragon Army. No one wants it. They say it’s unlucky. 

Ender walks in the view his new barracks, as in the movie. Bernard has his moment of character development (the bully learning self-doubt, and then accepting Ender’s affirmation of worth)

We get our first practice. THE ENEMY’S GATE IS DOWN.

Maybe a practice montage. We see Ender sitting with Alai, Petra, who both have commander’s sigils on their uniforms. Dink rolls his eyes.

We see Ender in a study room, watching the vids of the Second Bugger War over and over, again and again.

A slip is dropped on the floor outside Ender’s door—notice of their first battle. We cut to Ender bursting through the barracks doors. There is uproar and clamor over this first battle, which has come months early. Little boys swear. 

Dragon Army jogs through the halls in uniform, nervous. They line up in front of the Battle Room doors, just like in Ender’s first battle under Bonzo. Ender moves to stand in front of them. Takes a deep breath.

> ENDER  
> Remember. The enemy’s gate is down.

We cut to the other Army—Bonzo, JerkFace Commander of Salamander Army, is giving some macho rousing speech, slamming a fist into his palm, saying something derisive about the little Wiggin boy.

Then we cut to MAJOR ANDERSON MY QUEEN and COLONEL INDIANA JONES GRAFF, who are in a viewing booth, obviously a bit nervous. Through a wide window we have a view of the whole Battle Room.

> ANDERSON  
> His first battle. He’s barely had them a month. Are you sure it’s wise to push him like this?
> 
> GRAFF  
> We’re running out of time. And a few losses now will hardly hurt him in the long run, surely.
> 
> ANDERSON  
> Do we have a long run?

Graff shushes her, leaning forward as the doors to the Battle Room slide open. We cut briefly back to Bonzo’s army, watching them glide into the room in structured ranks.

We cut back to Graff and Anderson’s view. There is a hushed moment and then Dragon Army explodes out of their door with a roar, swarming in all directions, from all directions, Bonzo’s army panicking against the onslaught. It is an obvious callback to the vids Ender has been watching over and over.

They look like Buggers.

Graff smiles.

— 

After this, we’ll head into a lovely montage of scenes in which Ender and Dragon Army win and win and win, and get more exhausted and burnt out as they go. Ender keeps watching the Bugger videos, other commanders flocking to try to find out his secrets. (Bean will explain exasperatedly to his tired teammates over lumpy eggs in the mess hall, “They won’t find what they’re looking for. He’s not thinking about how to win the game. That’s not why he’s watching those vids. He’s thinking about the war.”)

This will eventually culminate in the Bonzo in the Bathroom scene, Ender’s[Heroic Blue Screen of Death](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicBSOD), and kicking the story on to to Command School.


	8. An aside: saving the pilots

I thought the graphics for the Command School battles was brilliant— but the presence of the pilots below them confused me. Unknowingly choosing the sacrifice good men while also unknowingly choosing to destroy a species are two of the heavy weights on Ender’s shoulders. Here, they pluck the pilots out of their ships and put them safely in headquarters. Why?

It was almost as though they were trying to preserve their protagonists’ innocence. They killed the Buggers, but didn’t sacrifice the pilots. Why remove anything from Ender’s shoulders? Don’t rob him of the true weight of his griefs. 

If you want protagonists without blood on their hands, don’t write about child genius commanders at war. If you want protagonists without blood on their hands, you shouldn’t be writing this story. 

But if you want them innocent with their bloody hands—then why did you stop lying to Ender?

No, put the pilots back in their ships. Lie to Ender. Fail to trick Bean and allow him to lay out all the horror and manipulation for the audience. In the final battle have Ender, exhausted, defiant, done; the adults cheering behind him; Bean drawn and solemn, understanding with the audience the complex horror of the thing Graff is calling a triumph.

(Ender and Graff screaming at each other after the battle was perfect. Keep that. Frame it).


	9. The End

We’re nearly done! (Well, let me not lie to you, I’m not done. I’m going to continue to have emotions about this, at least to myself, for, uh, ever. I’m  _far_  too over-invested in Ender Wiggin).

But we come to the end of our story for now. We’ve talked about the need for Ender to be not just the tactician, [but the victim](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67737567977/editing-enders-game-part-2) and [the leader](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67641516818/editing-enders-game-part-one) as well. To build both the world and Ender’s worth as a leader, we’ve talked about [his](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67646109672/editing-enders-game-part-1b-petra) [jeesh](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67735818277/editing-enders-game-part-1c-alai). We’ve talked about[ Dragon Army](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/72753477331/editing-enders-game-part-6-a-spotlight-on-dragon), [Bonzo’s death and going to Command School.](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/72852527395/editing-enders-game-part-5b-bean)

What’s left? Ender’s final battle, and the ending.

[I discussed the last battle here](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/67935697006/editing-enders-game-part-3-where-is-graff-the) and [here](http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/72852985797/editing-enders-game-an-aside), in the context of why Graff needs to be lying to Ender if we want to full emotional impact of that scene.

So now let’s talk about the ending.

I love the ex-Bugger colony planet with Val as Ender’s end game (for now—sequels withstanding). The boy spends the book so desperate to build and is forced to destroy over and over again. As he says, let’s give him a chance to show he’s as talented at peace as he is at war.

(Also: the Buggers canonically had perfectly human-habitable planets—that’s why they were after Earth initially? To colonize? The transformation of the buggers’ homeland into a fiery death desert planet dehumanizes them further, when the  _point_  of them is their empathy and compassion, that they attacked initially out of ignorance (a parallel to how Ender killed them). A shared homeland aesthetic helps people to empathize with others. Turning the Buggers’ home into a wasteland further distances the viewer from them. It’s a propaganda move Graff would approve of using, but the writer who is trying to get us to love and mourn the Buggers shouldn’t).

But that’s the very end—we need to close up a few more things before that.

 

So what happens? We destroy the Buggers. Ender realizes the truth.

He storms off to go be in shock, but instead of stumbling outside and finding the Bugger Queen napping on their front doorstep, Graff or Dap comes to grab him. News has gotten out that the Buggers are gone and factions are breaking out in the International Fleet. “As soon as something else isn’t trying to kill us, we start killing each other.” Drop Ender in his room with guards outside. Maybe we hear some gun shots, but we don’t need to see any combat here. It’s unimportant. This war lasts thirty seconds or so, from our perspective. What we want is a chance to take a long breath, after the excitement of the last battle, and have a chance to watch Ender’s face as the horror sits in. This little war is so insignificant to him compared to the one he just ended.

Gunfire stops. Ender may or may not look up. The door opens and his jeesh stumbles inside. 

Joyous greetings, though Ender’s still obviously in shock. They settle down, clustering around Ender.

> PETRA  
> Hey, can you believe it? We won the war.
> 
> ALAI (laughs)  
> We were so eager to grow up so we could fight in it, and it was us all the time. I mean, we’re kids, Ender. And it was us. It was you, anyway. You were good, boss.  I didn’t know how you’d get us out of that last one. But you did. You were good.
> 
> ENDER  
> What am I now, Alai?
> 
> ALAI  
> Still good.
> 
> ENDER  
> At what?
> 
> PETRA  
> At anything. There’re a million soldiers who would follow you to the end of the universe.
> 
> ENDER  
> I don’t want to go to the end of the universe.
> 
> BEAN  
> So where do you want to go? They’ll follow you.
> 
> PETRA  
> You okay? You scared us. They said you were crazy, and we said they were crazy.
> 
> DINK   
> Everybody’s okay now. Nothing a few days of cowering in blacked-out rooms in the middle of a little civil war can’t cure.
> 
> ENDER  
> I don’t have to be your commander anymore, do I? I don’t want to have command anyone again.
> 
> PETRA  
> You don’t have to command anyone. You will always be our commander.
> 
> ALAI   
> So what do we do now? The bugger war is over. And so’s the war down on earth, and even the war here. What do we do now?
> 
> PETRA  
> We’re kids. They’ll probably make us go to school. It’s a law. You have to go to school til you’re seventeen.
> 
> They laugh until they cry.
> 
>  

> Cut to a Command School hanger. The jeesh clusters around a shuttle, ready to board. Graff and Ender stand a little out of earshot.
> 
> GRAFF  
> Are you sure?
> 
> ENDER  
> I’m tired of fighting your wars. If I go back to Earth, the whole world will want me leading their armies.
> 
> Ender walks to the shuttle, to say goodbye to his last, smallest army. Petra ruffles his hair. Dink nods solemnly. Bernard shakes his hand and grins anxiously.
> 
> Alai and Ender embrace and Alai whispers, “Salaam.” Ender squeezes his eyes shut and steps back.
> 
> Bean stands slightly apart, wringing his hands.
> 
> BEAN  
> You’re not coming on the ship. You taking the next one?
> 
> ENDER  
> I’m waiting for a letter.
> 
> Alai, Petra, Bernard, Dink, and Bean board the ship. The camera stays on Ender, who stands and waves as they take off. 
> 
> There is a noise behind Ender. He turns around quickly, clearly still expecting attack. His face brightens and relaxes, though he doesn’t quite smile.
> 
> ENDER  
> Val.
> 
> Valentine drops a suitcase at her feet.
> 
> VAL  
> Hello, Ender.

> Inside the ship heading for EARTH.
> 
> PETRA to BEAN  
> Ready for the real world?
> 
> Bean snorts.
> 
> GRAFF (growls)  
> You’ll be fine, children.
> 
> BEAN  
> We’re not children. We’re soldiers.
> 
> DINK  
> You made us that way, sir.
> 
> ALAI is looking out the window, not angry like the others but sad.
> 
> ALAI  
> Ender’s not coming, is he?
> 
> Alai looks at Graff.
> 
> The cabin shakes as they settle down. PETRA squeezes her seat arms. BEAN sits straighter in his seat.
> 
> BEAN  
> We’re there.
> 
> FEMALE VOICE ON INTERCOM _  
> Arrival at Kennedy Space Center, oh-eight-hundred local time. Please watch your step while disembarking._
> 
> Alai stands and Ender’s jeesh follows behind him, toward the door. It is too bright to see what is outside.
> 
> ALAI  
> We won our war.
> 
> BEAN  
> Time to start fighting the next one.
> 
>  

> Cut to Ender and Valentine standing on a wide grassy plain. A colony ship is unloading behind them. The camera pivots around them so that the ship falls out of frame. Ender and Val are two small figures. A green landscape spreads out past them. The music soars, but it’s a little melancholy.
> 
> Cut to a close up. Val looks at Ender and smiles. Ender looks back and, for the first time since Bonzo, he smiles back.
> 
> And the credits roll.

 

 

 

But wait, wait, where’s the Bugger Queen larvae? Where is Ender’s penance and absolution?

I admit, I found the placement and treatment of the Bugger Queen and Egg in the movie a little jarring. I think having the egg found like that isn’t unworkable… but I have another proposition for you: let’s leave it for the after-credits scene.

I know! It’s like kicking it out of the movie a little bit. I’m sorry. But the Queen’s Egg is both a secondary ending in a movie with possibly too many endings already, _and_  a beginning which shotguns us into the action of  _Xenocide_  and the other books.

So why don’t we put it after the credits? Launching into sequels is what those do best anyway.

(And, as always, would love other ideas for this, for everything. There are eight million ways to convert this story; I want to read them all, please. Fill my inbox with dreams of Ender Wiggin).

 

Here’s my proposition for an after-credits scene:

 

> A futuristic helicopter flies over the vast green landscape of the colony world.
> 
> Ender, with a new haircut and clothes to show that he’s a little older, is in the helicopter. He stares, reaches out and shouts at the pilot to land. The chopper noise fades away as the camera closes in on Ender. We can hear him perfectly, though clearly the other characters can’t.
> 
> ENDER  
> I’ve dreamed that mountain.
> 
> It’s the same shape as the fallen castle in the mind game, bare rock rising out of greenery. Ender walks out alone and climbs inside the cave. With swelling music, he descends into the cavern and finds the egg of the last Bugger queen.

 

> THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/73187442639/editing-enders-game-the-masterpost


End file.
